Monday will do in a pinch:

What up with New Year’s Eve being on a Monday? Guess it’s in keeping with 2007’s insistence on being the Most Awkward Year Ever. In any case, I for one am going to party hard tonight, so come and join me— let’s freak out on Monday! Sleep in on Tuesday, headache Tuesday afternoon, maybe recover by Wednesday or Thursday.

I want to take this opportunity to extend my very sincere thanks to everyone who continues to make this blog possible— Martin Murray, for supporting the blog in more ways than one and keeping me on the right track when things looked bleak; Rachel Kelso, whose photographic artistry never fails to inspire me (and who I’m hoping will donate some more of her art for the new 2008 melissamaples.com layout!), Jonathan Bauer, my very first blog patron, who is still a faithful reader and now a friend, as well as a fantastic blogger in his own right (best food blog ever); and of course all of you, readers of this site, without whom 2007 would have been much less interesting and interactive. You guys make this site what it is, and I’m looking forward to upping the game in 2008. Thanks for sticking around and giving me an even better reason to do what I do. I hope each and every one of you has a great night tonight and a fantastic start to the coming year.

By the way, everyone has their lists ready, right? I have 30 items on mine. Share a couple of yours in the comments, if you don’t mind. Here, I’ll start: in 2008, I hereby resolve to start podcasting of some sort (even if it’s only here and there), and to revamp this blog so that everything has a nice new look and feel for the new year. So go on, what’s on your 2008 agenda?

Have a great New Year’s celebration, everyone.

It’s like when you need to go to Albany, but you keep putting it off:

Get it? Get it? Aw, never mind…

Okay, something I never talked about because we don’t have them on this side of town is free outdoor gyms. The Turkish national government got on this thing a few years ago about people getting fit, so they started installing free gym equipment in public parks. It seemed to me, though, that they were only putting this equipment in parks near rich neighbourhoods, which never made any sense to me because rich people can afford to go to the gym.

Anyway, I had to go out for an hour or so this morning, and guess what? Down at our little local park, about two blocks from my house, they’ve put in one of those outdoor gyms— right in time for my new fitness goals. They must have put this in within the past two weeks.

It’s kind of like playground equipment for adults. That sounds like something you’d order from a porn catalog. But people were coming off the machines huffing and puffing and sweating, so I think there’s some real exercise going on here. Not that porn isn’t real exercise, of course.

We have about ten different kinds of machines.

Each machine has a sign on it explaining which muscles the machine works and how to use it correctly.

I didn’t look at the sign for this one, and it didn’t occur to me until I got home that I have no idea what it is. There are no moving parts. Some kind of leg-lift thingy? I’ve asked a couple of my fitness instructor friends and they didn’t know, either.

I make it look like the place was deserted, but quite the opposite was true. People were actually waiting in line for some of the machines, like this two-person cross-country skiing thingy. There were all kinds of people using the outdoor gym— women, men, kids, you name it. I think it’s fantastic, and next time (maybe even tomorrow) I’ll wear more appropriate clothing and have a go myself.

A pillowcase straight from the bedroom of Lindsay Lohan:

I used to be familiar with a product called the Automatic Deep Master, but it didn’t have anything to do with t-shirts.

Hey, which way to the BSN show?

Well, this certainly explains a lot of things:

I think most of the clothing companies here might have had a double.

Do you guys have the Christmas tree Doritos? I’m a little surprised that we have the Christmas tree Doritos, seeing as we don’t have Christmas. However, in keeping with the infuriating Turkish assertion that Christmas and New Year are the same holiday and are both on the 31st, there are fireworks on the bag above the tree-shaped chips, and the name of this Doritos flavour is yılbaşı eğlencesi— “new year’s celebration.” And then, of course, on the 31st everyone tries to wish me Merry Christmas, and they pat me condescendingly on the head when I tell them Christmas was a week ago.

You think I’m kidding. If you try to tell them Christmas is on the 25th, they’ll laugh at you like you’re a crazy person, because everyone knows that on the 31st Santa rides a bottle rocket across the sky and brings Jesus in a stocking and puts him under the tree, and then we all get drunk after midnight and some virgin chick rides a reindeer around and delivers presents. I mean, duh. Christians and their nutty holidays, don’t try to figure it out.

It’s Christmas Eve, and you know what that means— time to bling the pup, of course:

What, you guys don’t bling the pup for Christmas? That’s just crazy.

Ha, I’m already on my 43th sweet: